


Alien Detection Devices Are Not Okay

by Russels_Silverware



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Politics, Pre-Relationship, Racism, i mean everything's political but this is explicitly so, it's ambiguous between those two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-11 19:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18430778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Russels_Silverware/pseuds/Russels_Silverware
Summary: Or: “Hey guys? Was I the only one who thought Lena was about 1,000% in the wrong here?”





	Alien Detection Devices Are Not Okay

“Although if you’re here on the same day the President is in town to sign her Alien Amnesty Act…” Lena trailed off expectantly.

“…I must be here to ask the sister of Earth’s most notorious alien-hater for her take on that, yes,” Kara finished for her, sheepishly.

“Well, I welcome it,” Lena said easily. “I don’t have a problem with any aliens so long as they’re peaceful.”

_Fair enough,_ Kara thought as she began to write down that quote.

“Although,” Lena continued with—was that mischief in her tone? “since you’re here, there _is_ something else I could show you. Something that would probably bring you more readers than that generic line.”

Kara raised an eyebrow, interest piqued. “Sure.”

Lena’s smile widened, and she stood up to retrieve a handheld gadget from a small safe on a shelf.

“This,” she declared, brandishing it, “is the latest prototype of something we’re working on: an alien detection device. You put your thumb here and it performs a basic chemical analysis of your skin to see if you’re human. If you are”—she demonstrated on herself—“it blinks green, see? If not, red.”

Then she held it out expectantly.

Kara didn’t even look at it. Her eyes stayed on Lena’s own as she struggled to process the enormity of this.

After a few seconds, Lena’s face began to fall. “Um—”

Kara blinked and came back to herself. _Crap, she’s about to accuse me of being an alien. Distract her!_ “This…doesn’t exactly jive with what you told Clark and me.”

Lena frowned. “How so?” She put the device aside.

_Oh boy, where do I begi—Wait._ Kara narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Are you playing devil’s advocate, or do you really not know?”

Lena steepled her fingers. “I don’t. It’s fine for aliens to be here, but the rest of us have a right to know who they are, don’t you think?”

Kara floundered. How was she supposed to _explain_ something so _obvious?_

“What happened to ‘A Nation of Immigrants?’” she finally managed.

“I think you’ll find that America has also always been a nation of humans.”

And Kara just stared at her because _Rao, she did **not** just say that._

As Lena’s polite, professional mask began to crack for the second time, Kara felt her own gaze turn searching and thoughtful. She reviewed everything she knew about this woman, every minute detail of how she had spoken and acted with Kara every time they had met, plus the background research she had done on her both as a reporter and in the Venture investigation. And then she knew what she had to do.

Kara closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. “Okay, we’re off the record now.” She put her pen and notepad away, then looked up to see Lena wearing an apprehensive frown and still watching the bag where the tools had disappeared to.

“And why is that?”

“Because,” Kara answered comfortingly, “when you say you hate what Lex did, I believe you. When you say you want this company to be a force for good in the world, _I believe you_. I believe that you’re a _good person_ , Lena Luthor; you’re so good, you feel the need to repay the world for the actions of your brother even though it’s massively unfair for you to have to answer for anyone but yourself. And so I believe that that monstrosity”—she indicated the device—“was born of ignorance, not malice. Which means you’ll be willing to listen to my explanation of why it’s so horrible.” She slowly placed on hand on the desk between them, face-up. “Okay?”

Lena looked down at the hand, and back to Kara’s eyes. “You swear this is off the record.”

Kara felt one side of her mouth twitch upwards. “If I’m lying, you can sue CatCo out of business.”

For a long moment, Lena just looked at the hand, her face unreadable. Then she slowly, hesitantly, took it in one of her own. “Okay.”

Kara released the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. “Thank you.” She gave a reassuring squeeze. “So—” She winced, remembering. “You, uh, you said America’s always been a nation of humans?”

“…Yes.”

“Well—” Kara took a steadying breath. “We could’ve had this exact same discussion 50 years ago and you would’ve said America has always been a nation of _Whites_.”

Lena’s face instantly turned stormy, and she snatched her hand away. “That’s not—”

“It’s _the same argument,_ Lena!”

They both started.

Kara swallowed. “Sorry. _Ms. Luthor._ It’s the same argument.”

Lena pursed her lips. “The situations are not analogous. Humans of different ethnicities aren’t _dangerous_ like aliens are.”

“Two problems with that. First of all, a human with a gun or martial arts training is plenty dangerous enough if they want to be; should we force people to _actually_ register their hands as deadly weapons? Should it be a crime to pretend you don’t know Kung Fu? Second, it’s beside the point. Even for humans, the biggest deterrent to crime—I mean, besides, y’know, _morality_ —isn’t the fear of failing to pull it off, but the fear of getting caught afterwards. And being an alien doesn’t help with that.” _Unless you can shapeshift. Crap. Uh_ … “Actually, come to think of it, that whole argument is beside the point. Here’s a way more important question.” She paused to gather her thoughts. “You say we have a right to know who they are. Why? Why do you want to know? How could having that information affect your decision making? And— _And!”_ —she held up a scolding finger—“How much of your answer _isn’t_ some form of, ‘I want to know who to be racist against’?”

Lena opened her mouth. Hesitated. Sighed and closed her eyes. “Look, I know how this is going to sound, but…it’s not racist if it’s true.”

Kara’s sharp intake of breath was clearly audible.

“No!” Keeping her eyes closed, Lena held up a hand. “Just…hear me out, okay?”

Kara bit her lip. “…Okay.”

“The universe is _so enormous_ , and we have _no idea_ what’s out there. If you thought reconciling different _human_ cultural backgrounds was hard, what do you think the chances are that any given alien has values that are compatible with ours?”

Lena kept her eyes closed. Kara consciously forced herself to calm down. “Look at me?” she murmured.

With not-quite-disguised trepidation, Lena did.

Kara gave her a small but reassuring smile, and held out both hands this time. After another sigh and an eye roll, Lena obliged her.

“Again, two points. First, they’re not as different as you might think. I don’t know if you know this”—Kara waggled her eyebrows teasingly, well aware that Lena did know it—“but convergent evolution is a thing. Heck—” She chuckled. “Look at the Supers. That’s their actual morphology, you know.”

Lena’s glance at Kara’s shoulders, chest, and arms before moving back to her eyes was almost too quick for her to notice. “I know.”

_Moving on!_ “Second and more importantly, the incompatibilities between some human cultures are already as fundamental as it gets. In fact, there are lots of people _born here in America_ whose values are incompatible with American values; did you know that white supremacist terrorism has been growing for the past few years? We don’t see anyone wanting to strip _their_ citizenship.”

Lena said nothing.

Kara got a brainwave but hesitated to share, reluctant to dilute the philosophical purity of her position.

… _Ah, screw it. I have to take what I can get._ “Look,” she continued, making her voice as apologetic as she could manage, “if you need a business reason, the PR will be _murder_. It doesn’t matter how rosy my article is; it’ll just damage my credibility as a journalist. This is _bad_ , Ms. Luthor, and people will see it immediately. They’ll compare your device to a sexuality detection device”—Lena flinched at that—“and to pre-war Nazi laws forcing Jews to identify themselves, and _they won’t be wrong_.” Kara noticed a bit of desperation entering her voice and couldn’t manage to get rid of it. “They’ll say this puts the lie to what you told Clark and me, and what you said at the renaming ceremony; that you’re no different from Lex after all and this is you beginning to show your true colours, because that’s—” She cut herself off and backtracked. “…because _for someone who doesn’t know you_ , that’s the easiest, most straightforward conclusion to reach!”

The silence that followed was deafening. Lena held Kara’s hands in a death grip, emotions flitting across her face to quickly for Kara to recognize.

_I think that’s about it._ “Tell you what. I’ll consider _everything_ about this device to be off the record. You never took it out of that safe; I have no idea it exists. That way, you can have as much time as you need to think about what I’ve said.” Kara gently extricated her hands, stood, and turned to leave.

“W-Wait!”

Kara’s eyebrows shot up. _A Luthor, stuttering?_ She schooled her expression and turned back.

“Why…Why are you being so _nice_ to me?”

Kara smiled warmly. “Like I said, I believe that you’re a good person who’s made an honest mistake, and fortunately, there’s still time to make it right before”—her face fell—“it gets someone hurt. Think about it.”

Then she left.

* * *

On the elevator ride down to the L-Corp lobby, Kara reflected on the encounter. _Downside: Lena probably suspects that I’m Supergirl. Upside: she probably (hopefully) won’t keep developing that thing._

…

_Worth it._

* * *

Kara’s article was published the next day.

The day after that, James stopped by her desk to say that Lena was on the phone, asking for her.

“Ms. Luthor, hi!” she greeted her.

“Hello again, Miss Danvers.” The reply was subdued. “I was hoping you had a minute to _…_ put a cap on our _off-the-record discussion_.”

Kara blinked in understanding. “Oh. Yeah, sure.”

“I…owe you an apology. And a thank-you.”

Kara just hummed, not knowing how else to respond. “What’s the apology for?”

“I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with reporters in the past. There was a part of me that couldn’t quite believe you would put journalistic integrity above the opportunity for a scoop.”

Kara smiled. “Well, I’m glad I exceeded your expectations.”

Lena gave a humourless laugh. “Did you ever.” Kara heard her take a deep breath. “I want you to know that we’ve scrapped the device. I just finished destroying all the prototypes and documents myself.”

Kara felt the warmth of gratitude and relief blossom in her chest. “Oh.”

“At the risk of being cliched: you’ve made me look inside myself, and I didn’t like what I saw, but it’s helped me become a better version of myself. I…wasn’t as free of my family’s prejudices as I thought.”

“…Wow. That’s…wow.”

Lena laughed again, though with a bit more life this time. “You are something else, Kara Danvers,” she declared affectionately.

“Well. Thank you, Ms. Luthor.”

“Lena.”

“Uh, what?”

“You can call me Lena.”

“Oh. _Oh!_ Yes, that’s…yes.” Kara cleared her throat. “Should I be honoured?” she asked playfully.

“Yes, actually. I can count on one hand the number of people who call me by my first name.”

Kara’s breath caught. _No way; she must be so lonely._ “Well, you _have_ to call me Kara, then.”

“Of course, Kara.”

Kara couldn’t stop a wide smile. _I like the way she says my name._

“Oh, by the way,” Lena went on, “thanks for the PR excuse, too. It’ll keep my board of directors from tearing my head off.”

Kara guffawed at the description. “Stay safe out there, Lena.”

“You too, Kara. I look forward to our next meeting.”

“Likewise.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I’m heteronormative AF, so if I’ve gotten anything wrong, please sound off in the comments.  
> 2\. I’m not an American and I refuse to spell like one :P  
> 3\. Convergent evolution could never actually produce aliens that look like humans without common ancestry (and that’s true in every universe, because evolution depends on math, not physics), but it’s the best fig leaf I can think of for ridiculously humanoid aliens in this and many other fictional universes.  
> 4\. Lena flinches at the sexuality comparison because she’s a closeted lesbian in my headcanon.


End file.
